Harry Potter and the Colliding Worlds Conspiracy
by Truth-Seeking Cretin
Summary: Taking place in the middle of Harry Potter no. 5, Harry's world is upended when suddenly the whole world seems to be trying to massacre Hogwarts. Harry Potter, HalfLife:Opposing Force crossover.
1. History of Magic is History

Author's Notes: Firstly, this is indeed a Harry Potter and Half Life: Opposing Force crossover, but it's been written seriously, hence why neither of the genres is humour. Secondly, I own none of the concepts, characters, or books I refer to, and this goes for ALL the chapters. Thirdly, if you enjoy this fic, be sure to check out its counterpart in the Games: Half Life section of this site. It's called HalfLife: Opposing Force: The Alternate Reality. It is an identical story to this, but written from Corporal Shepherd's point of view, offering a completely different narrative and answering some of the questions this fic leaves open. Fourthly, whether you like the story or not, review it for God's sake! And review my other one as well, because nobody's reviewing it!  
  
Harry was daydreaming about being a ceiling fan. This was what today's History of Magic lesson had reduced him to, imagining what it would be like to be different inanimate objects. Usually Professor Binn's lectures involved things which had the potential to be interesting if it was imagined in one's head in the right kind of light, e.g. epic battles, but today the dead fogie was dribbling on about the development of magic wands, and their predecessors, magic staves. Harry had gone into such an advanced state of lethargy he felt as though all his muscles had gone into entropy. With all the speed he could muster, he slowly craned his neck left. Hermione was rapt with attention, scribbling furious notes down onto her parchment. The look of concentration on her face was unbelievable amongst the ocean of boredom washing around the room. Harry slowly turned his head right. Ron appeared to be performing palmistry on himself, writing down his findings on parchment with such a lack of speed it was plain he didn't even vaguely care about the findings. Harry had already gone through all his usual standby things to think about when he was bored, wondering what Voldemort's next move would be, fantasising about Cho, imagining he was a ninja etc. but all of these topics were spent. So in his head he was composing a haiku about the life of a ceiling fan. The room was a time vacuum, sucking out all the time so its denizens were forced to endure purgatory for days on end when in reality the lesson was only a couple of hours long.  
Suddenly the bell rang. Life reawakened around the room; suddenly Harry could hear the birds outside, and the comparatively pathetic British summer sun was warming him from through the window. Simultaneously all of Harry's muscles worked themselves out of entropy, and Harry gingerly stood up. He walked out of the room woodenly.  
"That was as bad as a lesson can get without Snape or Umbridge being involved." Harry opined to Ron and Hermione once they had left the room.  
"I think it's a disgrace that so few people listen to Professor Binns," she snapped back. "That lesson was very interesting and well put together."  
Ron sighed. "Hermione, History of Magic doesn't have the same effect on other people as it does for you," he explained. "For example, when I'm in a History of Magic lesson my brain slows down slower than a troll's."  
"No change then." muttered Hermione. Ron didn't catch it.  
"And for me," Harry supported, "it's a kind of reverse-Yoga. All my joints seize up and I just want to die."  
"Oh, stop being so dramatic, it's just a lesson!" Hermione replied heatedly.  
"I wasn't being dramatic, I was being honest." Harry defended. "Listen." He stopped walking. He bent his neck to each side, resulting in several sharp cracks. He then straightened out his elbows one at a time, inciting one more crack each, and proceeded to crack every single movable joint in his body. His grand finale, after cracking all three joints in every one of his fingers, was placing his hand behind his back and leaning back on it sharply, with half-a-dozen high-pitched cricks echoing off the stone walls. Several onlookers broke into mock applause, and Harry sank into a mock bow. He continued walking. "I don't see how History of Magic doesn't qualify as a health hazard if it does that to me."  
Hermione didn't dignify this argument with a response.  
It was now lunchtime, so the majority of the students were making their way towards the Hall. Harry, Ron and Hermione took a slight detour to enjoy the spectacular view out of a curving, third-floor window of the Hogwarts grounds and lake. The sun was high in the sky, throwing the dark undersides of the leaves of the nearby tree into sharp contrast with the glaringly bright tops. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Which would soon be ruined by external influences.  
"Hey!" Ron exclaimed. "What's going on there?"  
Centaurs were emerging from the Forbidden Forest in a state of high alert. They were being led by Bane, who was shouting orders as he and his group stampeded towards the castle, bows and spears held high.  
"What on earth are they doing?" Harry demanded. "What could have made centaurs so angry they're going to come down to the castle?"  
Hermione grabbed his arm and choked out a suspicion. "Do you suppose - Grawp? -"  
"No." Harry said instantly. "Hagrid had him under better control than this." But his voice was doubtful.  
Then, adding to their confusion, other magical beasts started pouring out of the boundaries of the Forbidden Forest, the likes of which they'd only seen before in textbooks. Beasts of every description, all charging side by side in synchronicity, including beasts who were definitely mortal enemies of each other and should be at each other's throats.  
"Grawp couldn't do all this." Ron stated slowly.  
"What on earth is going on?" Hermione wondered, fearful.  
"You'll never know, Mudblood." Draco Malfoy appeared. Crabbe and Goyle followed, as always. His vile smirk twisted his face into something subhuman.  
"I've told you not to call her that - "Ron seethed, starting to draw his wand, but stopping when he saw Malfoy's wand was already in his hand.  
Harry stared at Malfoy. "Do you know something about what's happening?" Harry asked quietly.  
Malfoy laughed maniacally. "It's a purification." He drew breath for an incantation, made the beginnings of a wand movement.  
However Harry had trained in Dumbledore's Army, and after such extensive practice could draw faster than Billy the Kid. His wand appeared in his hand as though by magic and he screamed out the five syllables of "EXPELLIARMUS!" before Malfoy could even start to talk. Malfoy was blasted backwards and hit his head on the fist of a suit of armour, his wand flying the other direction into Harry's outstretched left hand. Ron and Hermione had their wands out even before Crabbe's and Goyle's snarling expressions had fully changed into looks of fear. Ron and Hermione waited, unwilling to hex unarmed people, so Crabbe and Goyle fled. Harry walked over to Malfoy and checked him.  
"He's out cold." he said aloud for Ron and Hermione's benefit. He plucked the Inquisitorial Squad badge from Malfoy's robes, examined it, and threw it out the open window. Then he snapped Malfoy's wand in half, snapped it into quarters, and dropped it onto Malfoy's unconscious form. "You don't deserve to be in Hogwarts." he murmured half-aloud.  
"This is bad." Ron announced, scared. Harry looked out the window. The creatures from the Forest were swarming around the school grounds! Then, the cloud of magical creatures turned towards Hogwarts School itself and moved towards it purposefully! There was a nuzzling third-year couple sitting in the shade of one of the trees. One of them, the boy, stood up and shouted. One of the centaurs loosed off an arrow at the kid in passing, sticking him full in the chest. Hermione screamed. Two other centaurs shot him as well, and another one shot the girl in the head. Harry felt numb with the inhumanity of it. Homicidal, remorseless creatures were teaming up and invading Hogwarts with the intention of killing the students! It was unthinkable.  
"Harry?" Hermione's broken voice pleaded. Harry snapped his gaze from the two corpses by the tree. Both Ron and Hermione were looking to him. Asking for help and advice without speaking. The bloody idiots! Did they really think he had the foggiest of ideas what the hell was going on, or what they should do? But suddenly, he knew what to do; interrogate Malfoy. Assuming he hadn't been full of it earlier when talking about a purification, he knew something. Harry turned. Malfoy was gone. He had left the pieces of his wand, but he had definitely legged it. Obviously he was not as out-cold as he had appeared to be.  
"Damn!" Harry shouted, and kicked the suit of armour. The shout and the clang echoed down the long hallway. A thousand accusing voices damned him for letting that toerag Malfoy get away. He considered their options. "Okay, find Dumbledore." Harry decided. When in doubt, find Dumbledore. 


	2. RUN!

The three of them set off at a run, down towards the Great Hall. They got to the last staircase leading from the first floor to the ground floor, right next to the Hogwarts main doors and the doors into the Great Hall, and carnage met their eyes. The front doors had been smashed inwards brutally by some great beast. A never-ending stream of creatures was fighting savagely with a protective ring of wizards standing around the doors, who were hardly ever pausing to draw breath between their cursing. All of the wizards were teachers and prefects. Several of the wizards were dead, but they seemed to be giving an excellent account of themselves judging by the far larger body pile of the creatures just inside the main doors. Harry recognised one of the wizards as Dumbledore. It took so long to recognise him because he looked so radically different now, a fire in his eye, fiercely barking orders and striking down creature after creature with vengeful magic. Harry then noticed what the others didn't; along the corridor encircling the Great Hall a troop of Blast-Ended Skrewts skittered along behind the wizards' peripheral vision, trying and succeeding in sneaking up on the wizards.  
He had to save the wizards, which meant cursing the Skrewts. As he discovered in the maze in his fourth year, they could not be cursed directly because of their magical exoskeletons. So he chose to Transfigure a section of floor in front of them into quicksand. Surprising himself, he managed it. A long patch of the floor became quicksand. One of the Skrewts stepped onto the quicksand, and, because of its large weight and the high pressure on its spindly legs, it sank very quickly. The Skrewts behind it paused. Then a black-robed figure behind them took out a wand and transfigured the ground back. The figure looked up, and light glinted off the figure's silver mask.  
Flashback to his fourth year, in that fateful graveyard where Voldemort was returned to power, black-robed silver-masked wizards jeered as Harry took cover from Voldemort's curses behind a tombstone.  
Death Eaters?!...  
Harry had several gifts, one of which was instinctively keeping part of his mind clear in combat. So while most of his brain was blowing fuses from terror and stress, part of his brain ordered his wand arm to steady itself on the banister, and then ordered his mouth to speak the words of an offensive spell. The spell lanced out from his wand and fizzled towards the Death Eater, who saw it and dodged it. The Death Eater then let off a curse of his own, a far more potent Dark Arts curse. It was aimed badly and merely knocked a chunk out of the stairway. Harry repeated his curse. One of the Skrewts blasted into its path, knocking it straight backwards towards Harry, who ducked it. Then the Skrewts ganged up on the protective ring of wizards, who only just noticed them, resulting in the instantaneous slaughter of many of them. The ring quickly retreated into the Great Hall, firing off specialised curses designed to bounce off the floor and hit the Skrewts underneath their armour.  
Suddenly the battle inside the main doors was lost and magical creatures were pouring into the school. Some of them charged up each of the two main staircases, right at Harry, Ron and Hermione.  
"RUN!" Ron bellowed, and nobody needed any more prompting, they charged back up the few stairs they'd descended, a couple of arrows hissing past, and sprinted off down the corridor. The bestial and tribal growls and screeches which emanated from behind spurred them on. The trio turned down the first corridor they came to and hurtled onwards. They turned down several more paths before Hermione paid attention to where they were going.  
"Hey!" Ron shouted at two second-years ahead. "The Forbidden Forest just launched all its creatures at Hogwarts! For God's sake, hide!"  
"What's the new password?" one of them asked his friend.  
"Veritaserum." the other replied. "Professor Snape chose it personally."  
"Where are we going?" Hermione demanded. "What can we do?"  
"We need to hole up and wait." Harry answered, the answer suddenly leaping to mind. "Hopefully Dumbledore and the other teachers can hold the creatures out until the Ministry arrives. We should be some of the only students outside of the Great Hall, so all we need to do is get somewhere secure."  
"Gryffindor common-room?" Ron suggested.  
"Good idea." Harry approved. "If Sirius couldn't get into it without the password, neither will the creatures. Nor the Death Eaters."  
"WHAT?" Ron yelled. "Death Eaters?"  
"I saw one in the corridor off the Great Hall." Harry said. "Silver masks and black cloaks? Either Death Eaters or people pretending to be Death Eaters."  
They turned the next corner and ran up a staircase. Halfway along it, suddenly an imp came around the corner at the top of the stairs. It cackled. Harry didn't even think; he knew how dangerous they were, and how resistant to low-level spells, so in one slashing movement of his wand he howled, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" There was a blinding flash of green light, and the imp flopped to the floor. Six other imps ran from around the corner.  
Umbridge then came out of her office. "What is all this racket, Potter?" she smiled widely, not even noticing the deadly thugs just on her left because she was so intent on punishing Harry for using a spell in the corridor. One of the imps cast a minor spell, which caused a great split to appear in the side of Umbridge's head. Dark blood pumped out thickly. She whimpered and dropped. Another few imps came in behind the others.  
"No chance we're going this way!" shouted Ron, rebounding down the steps. Harry and Hermione followed, after each performing another killing curse on an imp and blocking a couple of spells each. But because of their delay, the mob of creatures behind was catching up. Thinking far more quickly than usual, when Ron saw a huge impatient procession of things coming down a very thin hallway, Ron fired off an Impediment Jinx at the one in front. It hit its target, an imposing troll, which immediately slowed down to super-slo-mo. Even the frothing spittle from its disgusting mouth was slowed down as it charged towards them in a bloodthirsty rage at the speed of a tortoise, stopping all the creatures behind it from passing. Ron grinned and ran on, Harry and Hermione at his heels. Looking backwards, Harry noticed one of the imps cast a spell at them. Harry used the Shield charm to rebound it while still running. The imp dodged its own spell and it struck a centaur. Harry didn't see what it did to the centaur because then they rounded another corner, with the Fat Lady's portrait at the far end.  
The trio saw a griffin at the end of the corridor. They raised their wands but did nothing. Two more griffins came out of a classroom door ahead. Harry, Ron and Hermione performed curses together, and a multicoloured cloud of sparks zoomed down the corridor. The griffins dodged the curses, formed up, and charged. The trio cursed freely and continuously. The griffins dodged well but not well enough, the three were taken down by the merciless barrage. Then no less than a dozen harpies flew in through the window next to the Fat Lady, as well as four Thestrals.  
"What are they?" Hermione cried, revolted.  
"Thestrals." Harry said, understanding at once that this was the first time she'd ever seen them, as she'd only just recently seen death. The trio took a side hallway to avoid the flying horrors. "Where can we go now?" Harry panted.  
"We should maybe try and find another common room." Hermione offered.  
Suddenly a massive Hydra stomped into sight at the end of the hallway.  
"OH MY GOD!" Hermione screamed, terrified.  
"In here!" Harry ordered, pointing to the Teleporting Trunk which sat by the wall innocently. "It goes straight down to the dungeons, but it's better than either of the other two paths!"  
The three friends quickly crammed into the Trunk with difficulty. There was a jarring noise and the ambient noise changed very quickly from a Hydra's roar and centaurs' hooves to cold wind, marching creatures and children's screams. 


	3. Frank Exchange of Opinions in Dungeons

Hermione made to push the lid open but Harry warned, "No! Wait!" in a whisper. Another troop of something marched past. Harry distinctly heard Macnair's voice behind them, saying, "Hold formation, lads, and don't kill anybody I know." The voice was muffled a bit, as though spoken through a mask. But then again, Harry found out just before last summer holidays that somebody named Macnair was a Death Eater, so the confirmation that the Macnair in the graveyard and the Macnair who came to kill Buckbeak were the same person didn't surprise him. The troop went away. Harry tentatively poked open the lid and peered out. There was nobody around. He let it shut again.  
"All right," he whispered, "the best place to go from here is the Slytherin common-room. Ron and I know where it is, because of our Polyjuice escapade in the second year, and we know the password, because a couple of second-years just told us, so there should be no trouble. Once we're inside, we don't know how many other Slytherins are on the same side as Malfoy, so we need to be extremely cautious."  
"Yeah." Ron agreed.  
The trio lifted the trunk lid silently, and clambered out with a minimum of noise. They snuck around corners quickly, on their guard, moving towards the section of wall they knew the Slytherin common-room was hidden behind. They managed to get to it without detection, and Harry recited the password quietly; "Veritaserum." The wall section slid open, revealing an ornate stone anteroom leading into the depressingly-decorated Slytherin common-room. In it sat a group of guffawing Slytherins, several of whom stood up from their chairs to see who had come in, including Malfoy.  
"I don't bloody believe it." Malfoy spat vindictively, drawing a 'borrowed' wand and letting off a curse in Harry's direction without provocation. Harry, Ron and Hermione immediately threw themselves behind adequate cover as the Slytherins rained curses into the room. Harry stuck his wand around the side of his cover and aimed with one eye, shooting a couple of curses of his own to keep their heads down. Ron and Hermione followed suit. The Slytherin curses became extremely intermittent as they chose to sit unmoving behind cover, while the Gryffindor curses kept on going, zinging into the room, stopping any attempt by the Slytherins to form up and fight properly. Eventually it ended up that the Slytherins would only perform the odd curse when its performer thought they had a good shot and a tiny chance of getting hit themselves, while the trio would have two people firing curses constantly for a short time while the third rested, then they'd switch so someone else could rest, etc. It was while Harry rested that he tried to strike up a conversation with Malfoy.  
"So, Malfoy?" Harry called. "Were you annoyed when you found out I snapped your wand into quarters? Whose wand are you using?"  
"Dunno whose wand it is." Malfoy shouted back. "I nicked it off the body of a dead Gryffindor." He spoke the final two words with malicious emphasis.  
Harry sucked in his breath sharply. "You really are a bastard, Malfoy, and I'm going to kill you someday." He left off a stream of curses so Hermione could have a rest.  
"What do you know about what's happening around the castle that we don't, Malfoy?" Hermione asked loudly.  
"I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of knowing." he answered. "Just rest assured that it's a long-overdue purification of the wizarding community. Starting with this school, eventually going over the whole world, within a year the only people left alive anywhere will be pure- blooded wizards and some peoples too primitive to bother with." Malfoy let out a high-pitched giggle, then launched a particularly nasty hex, cracking one of the pillars at the side of the anteroom, which Hermione lay behind. Hermione retaliated with a Stupefication, which managed to hit Malfoy. It was the first curse cast in the common-room which actually struck something living. Malfoy fell backwards unconsciously, stolen wand rolling aside.  
"Do we have to stay here attacking each other all day, or can we leave?" Hermione asked in annoyance, another charm from the enemy impacting the floor next to her foot.  
"Trading hexes with Slytherins for an hour is still safer than tangling with a squad of troglodytes and a Death Eater." Harry replied logically.  
"Harry, we both know that if we try and stay here for too long, our luck will run out and there won't be any more lucky misses from spells." she said. "We need to leave."  
"If we try and leave now, they'll come after us, or at least alert the creatures to our whereabouts." Harry responded. "We're better off sitting here trading curses for a few hours."  
Then Harry heard footsteps outside the hidden entrance of the Slytherin common-room. He heard a sinister voice on the other side say, "Veritaserum."  
Harry started his cry of, "Stupefy!" when the voice was on the 'u' sound of 'Veritaserum'. His spell exploded out the tip of his wand the split second the door opened to reveal a lone Death Eater. With a snarl of annoyed surprise the Death Eater crumpled to the ground. His mask was jarred slightly loose, showing off a clump of neck-length greasy hair that was Snape's trademark. Harry heard animal cries along the outside corridor to the left, first questions and then responses.  
"Time to go." Harry ordered breezily, throwing himself out the door looking left. Several things which appeared to be evil, overgrown tree sprites glared back malevolently. Harry barked, "Deflagro!" Two of them caught fire with a 'whump' sound. One of them ran backwards blindly, setting fire to two others.  
"This way!" Ron shouted, already a good ten feet the other way down the corridor. Instead of answering Harry saved his breath as he sprinted to catch up with Ron and Hermione.  
The trio pelted down the dank dungeon hallways which labyrinthinely criss-crossed the underground, passing through frequent ominous, slimy archways. It was down one of the longer hallways that Harry caught sight of Macnair and his troglodytes. Harry cast a Stupefication at the man, who rebounded it with the Shield charm. Before his charm returned, Harry had already ran around the corner.  
"POTTER!" Macnair's voice spat the name with the same universal love enjoyed by Adolf Hitler. It shouldn't have echoed, but it did. Endlessly. Even as Harry ran up the stairs out of the dungeons he was chased by his name, not to mention a Death Eater, a platoon of troglodytes and a few incarnations of wood. 


	4. Meet up in the Toilets

Harry and co. exploded out onto the ground floor. Miraculously no creatures were stationed there, or else the three young wizards and witch would have probably been cut down then and there. Looking around both physically, at his surroundings, and mentally, at the map of Hogwarts in his head, Harry opted for the stairs. "This way!" he gasped and ran on.  
The trio ran on, not knowing where, just away from the many things which wanted to kill them. Spying a knot of Knarls at the end of the hallway, they quickly dove down a corridor out of sight. Harry heard gunfire and frowned.  
"What's that?" Ron asked, scared, as he obviously did not understand the concept of gunfire. Harry ignored him. Then the source of gunfire came closer, and a group of soldiers ran around the corner at the far end of the corridor, some of them firing backwards with their assault rifles.  
Several giant spiders lumbered around the corner and made for the soldiers. Harry heard Ron seize up and start hyperventilating next to him. One of the soldiers didn't run fast enough, because of a glancing arrow wound in one leg, and he was knocked flying by one of the spider's twelve- foot-long legs. The other soldiers fired at the spider while they ran. One of them yelled, "Die, mutant!" in an unmistakably American accent. Harry ordered to Ron and Hermione, "Stunners after three! One, two, three! Stupefy!" with Hermione joining in with the last word. The curses simultaneously struck the head of the lead spider, who collapsed. Harry realised that a) two other spiders had come around the same corner, b) Ron hadn't joined in with the Stupefication because he was still hyperventilating over the giant spiders, and c) two of the soldiers were aiming right at him. Harry ducked as the soldiers opened fire, rounds ricocheting off the wall behind where he'd been standing, and shepherded Ron and Hermione out of harm's way as well.  
"Why are them lot trying to hurt us?" Ron wailed. "You helped them!"  
"They're trying to kill us, actually, and I don't know why!" Harry roared back.  
The trio ran down a different side corridor to get away from the soldiers. Before they turned the next corner they heard a Death Eater talking.  
"It's useless trying to fight, boys!" a malicious voice chuckled without mirth, not referring to Harry or Ron. Harry was pretty sure it belonged to Lucius Malfoy. Extra quiet, Harry shimmied along the wall towards the corner. Harry heard the moose-like grunt of a Yeti. "Boys, I'm going to perform a charm which will override the pathetic locking enchantment on this door now. I assure you, you have no chance. Give my regards to my ancestors in any afterlife you find yourselves in." Harry wisely decided to go for coward tactics. He put one of his eyes around the corner, surveying the situation. What he could see, while keeping most of his head this side of the corner, was a Death Eater and a Yeti, side by side. He decided to wait for Malfoy to begin the incantation before attacking, so he couldn't possibly counter Harry's attack, then try and deal with the Yeti(s) and any other creatures there.  
Lucius spoke some words. Harry heard the door click as he thrust his head around the corner, wand raised. "Stupefy!" Harry shouted, knocking Lucius off his feet. Then he drew breath again and stepped around the corner fully. "STUPEFY!" he and Hermione shouted at the same time. The combined curses succeeded in knocking out the Yeti where one curse would not have. When it hit the floor, the ground trembled. There was one creature left, a troglodyte. Harry could not imagine why it would be on its own, when he'd already seen their pack mentality, and Harry also saw that the troglodyte could not now remember why it was on its own. It clutched its spear rather piteously, then turned and fled.  
"Stupefy!" Ron shouted. The troglodyte fell over, looking like an absolute travesty. Hermione looked at him accusingly. "Hey, don't look at me like that." Ron defended himself. "If we let him get away, he'd have come back with loads of his friends."  
"I suppose." Hermione ceded, though Harry noticed a hint of sorrow as she looked at the hideous, eyeless thing passed out on the floor.  
"Harry?" came a voice inside the room. Harry suddenly recognised the room as the Prefect's bathroom, and the unseen speaker as Ernie Macmillan. "Is that you?" it clarified.  
"Yeah." Harry replied. "You doing all right?"  
"Until this tosser came along, yeah. Cheers for getting him for us." Ernie walked into the doorway and surveyed the scene. "You knocked out a Yeti? Impressive. Well, it's lovely chatting to you all, but I suggest we get inside before something worse comes along. Oh, and I think an interrogation is in order, so somebody grab his legs." Ernie pocketed the dropped wand, ripped off the Death Eater's mask and threw it into the room, picked up the unconscious man by the armpits and started dragging him inside the Prefect's bathroom. Ron hurried forwards to help, and Hermione stepped past them. However Harry paused to pick up the troglodyte's spear before walking into the room.  
"What have you got that for, and how did you get it, Harry?" Dean Thomas asked curiously, indicating the spear. He had been sitting silently in the room in cover behind the row of sinks, clutching a shotgun. He also seemed to have a pistol in his pocket.  
"I thought it might be useful, so I nicked it off a downed troglodyte." Harry replied. "What have you got that for, and how did you get it, Dean?" He indicated the shotgun.  
"I thought it might be useful, so I nicked it off a downed soldier." Dean answered. The two smiled at each other, then got on with what they were doing; in Harry's case, shutting and locking the door before walking over to Malfoy, and in Dean's case, cleaning the shotgun with a hand-towel.  
"So how did you two end up here?" Ron asked.  
"We had a bet going, so we went up the Astronomy tower with Justin Finch-Fletchley when the bell went." Dean began. "The bet was something trivial, but we were so high up we must've been the first people to see the creatures coming out of the Forest, eh?"  
"Must've been." Ernie agreed.  
"We tried to get to the Great Hall to warn everybody, you know? But we were cut off when a couple of harpies smashed through the window in front of us and came after us. Then a Thestral killed Justin - "  
"What? You can see Thestrals too?" Harry blurted out.  
"No, we couldn't. But once Justin died we could see the damn thing. Boy, are they ugly!"  
"Hear, hear." agreed Ron.  
"So we cursed the damn things. Cursed them to bits. We were pretty annoyed about Justin, see. When the creatures' bodies were unrecognisable, we carried on towards the hall, but we were surprised by a Muggle soldier jumping out in front of us. He asked for help and fell dead straightaway, we only just saw all the arrows in his back. Dean took the weapons, 'cause he's Muggleborn and actually knows what they do, then we had to leg it away from the centaurs who got the soldier. Malfoy Senior chased us further, even after Dean shot all the centaurs and had to 'reload', whatever that means. I remembered the password to this door and locked us in. That's when you showed up, just before Dean would've blown Malfoy's head off."  
"What's your story?" Dean asked Hermione tiredly.  
"We went round that corridor on the first floor, the one with the panoramic view, yeah? Then we saw the creatures come up to the castle and kill a couple of kids. Draco Malfoy cornered us, wand out, but Harry disarmed him and we thought he also knocked Malfoy out. Harry snapped Malfoy Junior's wand. We looked away for a second, and Malfoy disappeared, because he wasn't knocked out. We ran away from creatures and ended up going into the Slytherin common-room."  
"What?" Ernie cried, astounded.  
"We found out where it was ages ago, and we found out the password just before, so we got in. Guess who was waiting for us? Malfoy and his gang."  
"Unlucky!" Dean laughed without finding anything funny.  
"Then we had a frank exchange of opinions." Harry euphemised.  
"He means we threw curses at each other for five straight minutes." Hermione clarified. Ernie and Dean laughed. "Then the common-room door opens, and it's Snape behind us, in a Death Eater uniform! Harry Stupefied him - "Ernie and Dean cheered, "- and we legged it. We got chased by some creatures, and shot at by a couple of soldiers, and we ended up here."  
"They shot at you?" Ernie exclaimed, incredulous.  
"Yeah. To finish the story, Harry Stunned Malfoy, Harry and I Stunned the Yeti together, and Ron Stunned the troglodyte."  
"Not a bad story." Dean judged, turning his head to the door once again. Everyone else returned to the task at hand; Malfoy's interrogation. 


	5. Good Cop, Bad Cop

"Okay," Harry said loudly, automatically taking charge of the interrogation simply because he was the one who Stunned Malfoy, and for no other reason, "We should tie his hands. When we wake him up he'll probably be a bit violent because he's a prick, then we need to keep him at spearpoint and wandpoint at all times. And we give him the good cop/bad cop routine until he cracks and spills something."  
"What's the good cop/bad cop routine?" Ron asked, perplexed.  
"I think Ernie should be good cop, because he's the only non- Gryffindor in the room," Harry continued, ignoring Ron, "but who wants to be bad cop?"  
Harry looked at the potential candidates. Dean seemed to be utterly absorbed in his task as a door guard, Ernie was already indisposed, Hermione didn't have it in her to be mean, not even to Lucius Malfoy, and Ron was too self-conscious to be an effective bad cop. Harry sighed. "Fine, I'll be bad cop. Somebody tie him up and search his pockets." Ernie pulled a long bit of string out of his pocket and wrapped it around each of Malfoy's hands several times before tying it off with a ridiculously complicated knot. Then he patted Malfoy down in a professional manner, coming up with nothing. "Now, Hermione and Ron, hold him at wand point, and I'll take the spear. When we wake him up, Ern, you need to expound to him the immediate advantages of telling us the truth. When he doesn't, I'm gonna poke him about with this thing to hurt and scare him, then I'm gonna drown him a bit in the bath." At this Harry turned on the bath's faucet, and he watched it magically fill up far faster than it should have done with just one small tap. "Then you're gonna ask him again, but before he answers I'm gonna slap him around and ask him again. Then you're gonna to tell me to be nice, and you're going to remind him that answering truthfully is the fastest way to stop this. And we go from there."  
"It's a good plan." Ernie said half-aloud, nodding. "Get in position."  
Hermione pointed her wand at Malfoy and said, "Enervate."  
Malfoy regained consciousness fairly slowly, then started kicking and thrashing about on the floor, trying to break his bonds. He looked around, incensed at how he was tied up, and noticed he had three weapons pointed at him. He gave up struggling and sighed.  
"Dear me, the stigma of being caught by people who are nearly all of impure blood. Let me go, foolish children, and I will spare your lives."  
Harry reacted quickly, smashing him in the mouth with the spearbutt. Malfoy's head jerked back, then resettled to its normal position. Malfoy glared at Harry, but postponed his next insult so he could first run his tongue over his lips, tasting for blood.  
"Mr. Malfoy," Ernie began smarmily, "it is of my understanding that you and a somewhat meagre band of minor miscreants have decided to play a practical joke on this school by bringing in the least civilised citizens of the Forbidden Forest to roam the school corridors. I was hoping maybe you could help me and help yourself by telling me who sent you."  
Malfoy sat up and looked around. "So, Potter, Granger and Weasley ganged up on me from behind. How very noble of you."  
"I assure you, sir, that it is in everyone's best interests that you tell us now." Ernie ploughed on. "If you decide to delay telling us for five minutes, while we lose five minutes, you might just lose five fingers. And if you don't tell us, you might just lose your life."  
Malfoy looked pained. "Child, on several occasions Lord Voldemort performed the Cruciatus Curse on me when I failed him. Do you really think a spear has anything on the Cruciatus Curse? Ask Harry, he knows what it's like."  
Harry plunged the spear into Malfoy's leg, savoured his shout of pain, twisted it, and pulled it out. "You will learn some respect for your captors," Harry purred, injecting fake sadism into his voice by the bucketload, "and you will also tell him what he wants to know."  
"Sod off." Malfoy growled.  
Harry stepped on the wound, leaning on it. Malfoy grunted, but kept his shouting in. Harry dropped the spear, grabbed the hem of his robes, picked him up, and threw him facedown on the edge of the bath.  
"Guess what's coming next." Harry whispered in his ear. "You want to tell me now and save all that spluttering you're going to do?"  
"No." Malfoy said coldly. So Harry dunked him, holding his face under, while he struggled against his bonds. Harry held him under for quite a time, really testing how well Malfoy could hold his breath. Finally he lifted his head back over the water.  
"Tell us who sent you and what you're here to do." Ernie advised him. "Otherwise I gotta let psycho-boy here have some more fun with you."  
"I'm not going to tell you." Malfoy repeated.  
"Come on." Ernie said. "This is clearly Voldemort's doings. Death Eaters running around in traditional Death Eater regalia, going after a long-standing Death Eater foe? Just admit that much. You are under the command of Lord Voldemort."  
"I admit nothing." Malfoy sulked, so Harry held him under again. This time he held him under even longer than he did before. He waited until Malfoy's thrashing began losing some of its enthusiasm before bringing him back up. And after he did, he slammed Malfoy's face against the rim of the bathtub for good measure. Coughing and choking, and also spitting out a tooth, Malfoy was not in good shape.  
"Please start talking." pleaded Ernie. "Otherwise I gotta let Harry kill you, and then he gloats for hours afterwards and nobody's happy. Tell us what you know."  
"My friends... will come get me." he gasped.  
"No they won't." Ernie assured him. "They barely know you, you're just another extraneous cog in a broken-down machine, even if they knew you were missing they wouldn't give a damn about you."  
"My friends will come get me," he repeated, "and then you will be begging for my mercy."  
"Keep telling yourself what you want to hear, whack job." Harry told him unkindly before thrusting his head underwater again. This time he held the man under even longer than before. The seconds passed slowly, Lucius thrashing about. His jerks slowed down, and began convulsions instead. At last Harry let him up.  
"Look, Lucius, I'm bored with this game now." Harry said uncaringly, turning him around and letting him lean on the side of the bath. "Either you talk right now, and we let you live, or I will kill you with this primitive tool and let your rapidly cooling corpse bleed all over the floor. I'm not joking; it's an absolutely final ultimatum." Harry held the spearpoint on Malfoy's neck at a downward angle, leering into his face.  
"You'll find out the hard way who sent me when they kill you." Malfoy said pleasantly. Harry leaned very slightly, drawing blood. Malfoy choked slightly and shook. "Look at it from my perspective Harry. Even assuming that you would let me live if I told you anything, Voldemort would kill me himself when he found out that I did."  
Harry turned, grinning, to the others. "You see? Perseverance pays off. I got him to admit he's working for Voldemort."  
Malfoy's eyes bulged as he realised this. He lashed out with his good leg at Harry's forward leg, disrupting Harry's balance. An automatic human reaction was to balance himself by leaning on the pole he was holding, accidentally driving the spearpoint right through Malfoy's entire neck. Malfoy was killed almost instantly. Blood steadily dripped off the spearpoint onto the white tile floor. "Damn it." Harry muttered in annoyance. He dropped the spearshaft, and Malfoy slowly toppled over to the side. Everyone stared horrified at the body.  
Ernie broke the ice. "At least we can be pretty sure who's behind all this." he said.  
Suddenly there were two pairs of footsteps outside the door. "I swear I heard something." a voice reiterated. There was growling from the throats of troglodytes in the background.  
"Fine, check it out." another voice capitulated.  
"Hey, it's locked." the first voice said, jiggling the doorknob.  
"Then jinx it open, Nott, you slow bastard!" the second voice scorned. Harry recognised it as Macnair's voice. 


	6. Fight Back & Regroup

Harry and Hermione hunkered down behind the toilet, Ron joined Dean behind the sinks, and Ernie hid around the corner in the cul-de-sac shaped room. On the other side of the door one of the Death Eaters muttered something. The lock clicked. The Death Eater swung the door open, saw Malfoy's body, and immediately shouted, "Protego!" performing the Shield charm. What he didn't count on was that one of the targets would be clutching a shotgun. Dean fired, the Shield didn't protect against physical attacks, and the Death Eater yelled and was blown backwards like a rag doll. As Dean recocked the other four launched various curses through the door, Ernie just managing to duck around the corner when his curse rebounded off the other Death Eater's Shield charm. The Death Eater cast a spell of his own and a massive snake surged out of his wand tip and slithered into the room. Harry spoke Parseltongue, directing the snake backwards at the Death Eater, who screamed and banished the apparition. Ernie cast another spell at the man, but he was quick enough to block it again, and Ernie was quick enough to dodge it again. The Death Eater screamed, "In!" and his backup platoon of troglodytes charged forwards.  
The five of them had their hands full keeping themselves from being overrun. Three troglodytes dashed into the room nimbly, and Dean blasted them to the ground with one shell. As he recocked the others cast cruel curses to kill the other troglodytes who ran in. The party patiently slaughtered all of the troglodytes who made their way into the room, until soon the troglodytes had to climb hand over hand to get over the pile of corpses in front of the door, which made it even easier to dispatch them. At last all the troglodytes were dead, and Harry could hear only the Death Eater's ragged breathing outside the door. The Death Eater, using great skill, Vanished all the corpses with one wave of his wand. Dean stealthily padded over next to the door, and nodded at Ron, gesticulating strangely. Ron got the message, nodded, and gesticulated at Ernie. Ernie got it and nodded too. He stuck his head around the corner. "Anyone left alive?" he asked loudly.  
The Death Eater bellowed, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" Ernie just dodged the deadly green curse. Dean pivoted around the corner very quickly and pulled the trigger, only getting a glancing blow on the Death Eater because of his haste. Even so the man's wand arm was blown off and bounced away. The Death Eater shrieked in agony. Dean aimed at his head and pulled the trigger. The shotgun was out of shells. He painstakingly reloaded the shotgun as the Death Eater sagged against the wall, holding his stump of an arm. The other four came out after him, looking at him pitilessly.  
"Please," he begged, "I'm not a threat anymore, I've lost my arm, just let me go."  
Harry snorted. "No, I've seen Voldemort give Wormtail his arm back, he'd do the same for you. So you still are a threat. But not for long." Harry grabbed the shotgun off Dean and shot the Death Eater right in the mask, instantly reducing him to biological waste material. He gave the shotgun back, and Dean loaded in another shell.  
Harry saw two manticores fly through a closed window at one end of the corridor. "Time to leg it!" he announced and ran. Everyone ran after him, Dean acting as rear guard.  
Four mountain trolls pounded around the corner ahead. Harry didn't even blink before he let off an Impediment jinx, and the other members of the party struck the trolls in a similar fashion so the trolls were all out of commission. A giant spider and two Blood-Sucking Bugbears came around the corner.  
Harry had been taught how to deal with Blood-Sucking Bugbears. He and Hermione cast a special spell at the same time, causing a pond of blood to erupt out of their wands. The Bugbears should have immediately flung themselves to the ground and lapped up the blood, dying in seconds when the poison in the fake blood took effect. Instead they ignored the great lake of blood they were now stepping over, unheard-of among Blood-Sucking Bugbears. So instead the five of them attacked manually, putting lots of curses and lead shot at the Bugbears. The two were killed very quickly. Then two of the sorcerers cast Stunners simultaneously, knocking down the spider, while a third Vanished all the blood so they could run through without slipping over.  
"Up the stairs!" Dean shouted. "The manticores are catching up!"  
"Gotcha." Harry agreed and ducked into a slim spiral staircase leading up. He spied through the next door several soldiers so he continued climbing. But the soldiers had seen him, and fired loads of rounds through the doorway, taking down Ernie. Dean, the next one through, fired his shotgun indiscriminately, wounding two of the soldiers and killing two more. He emptied the shotgun, and had no more ammo, so he dropped it, drew his Desert Eagle and ran on. He dropped a grenade behind him as he caught up with Harry. The soldiers also threw a grenade in. When the two grenades went off, they structurally damaged the staircase so much that a large section fell away from it, not only crushing dead a manticore who'd been shimmying up the stairs but also stopping chase from the soldiers.  
Meanwhile Harry had come to the next and final floor the staircase led to and was looking about with despair. He saw shadows of magical creatures of all kinds nearing both ends of the corridor he was in. He knew they couldn't try and take on all these things, and rightly guessed they couldn't go back down the stairs for the wrong reason (i.e. he thought the soldiers would give chase, as he didn't realise the staircase had partially collapsed). They couldn't just hide in a classroom, they'd have to hide someplace the creatures wouldn't find them. And for a second he couldn't think of one. And then he grinned.  
"Right, everyone, follow me." he whispered. Harry walked over to the blank stretch of wall where the Room of Requirement lay waiting, invisible. Harry walked past it three times, thinking, 'We need a comfortable, soundproof place that can't be seen by people and creatures who want to kill us.' And after the third time, the doorway suddenly appeared. Harry wrenched open the doorknob and barged in, the rest of his party coming in after him. 


	7. Surprise from an Unfamiliar Face

"Okay, people, this room is soundproof and invisible to creatures," Harry said loudly once the door was shut, "so feel free to make as much noise as you want." He then looked around the room. It was very similar to the Gryffindor common-room, with an identically-shaped mantelpiece and comfortable chairs set around a fire, though the room was somewhat smaller and there weren't as many chairs as the common-room. Harry walked towards the merrily crackling fire to warm his hands, which were still cold from his stint in the dungeons.  
"Excellent idea, hiding in the Room of Requirement." Dean approved. "Hell, while we're waiting we could even practice a bit for Dumbledore's Army." His voice grew sombre. "Even if now it is a lot smaller."  
"First of all, we've already had plenty enough DA practice just getting to this damn room." Ron retorted. "And second of all, I'm not sure sitting back and waiting is the best idea."  
"You have a better plan?" Harry asked hotly.  
"No, but that's the idea. We spend this time thinking up a better plan."  
"That's a genius idea, Ron." Harry said, rolling his eyes.  
"There must be some kind of an explanation for this." Hermione stated. "Now, the big question; is it really Voldemort organising this? Everything points to him, but it still could be somebody else."  
"Like who? Professor Karkaroff?" Harry shot back. Ron and Dean laughed at the very idea.  
"Now the little questions which branch off from it." Hermione continued. "How would Voldemort go about rallying every single kind of creature in the Forest to his cause? The centaurs aren't stupid enough to fall for such tricks as, 'Help us wipe out the school and we'll give you unlimited food' or anything like that, so it must be something really crafty. Why did the American soldiers come, and why do some of them shoot at us and some of them ask for our help? Most importantly, what can we do about it?"  
"Look, Hermione, face it, we just haven't got a clue." Harry scolded her bluntly. "We cannot answer any of the little questions except the last one; 'Nothing at the moment.' This is something far beyond our understanding, we're in so far over our heads we can't even see the surface. The best thing to do is to wait for the wizarding army to arrive and sort it out."  
Hermione held her tongue, grudgingly. Then suddenly she had an epiphany. "Hey, you know, when those Blood-Sucking Bugbears avoided our fake blood pool, they were directly disregarding an insatiable desire within them for blood. It was more than weird. It was suspicious."  
"So?" Harry asked.  
"What if Voldemort didn't make allies with the Forbidden Forest creatures?" she asked. "What if he took control of them?"  
"Hermione," Harry said, "Voldemort doesn't have enough power to do the Imperius curse on every single monster in the Forbidden Forest at the same time."  
Hermione shut up and thought hard.  
Time passed slowly. Harry fidgeted in his seat, Hermione sat restlessly, Ron was in deep thought for a change, and Dean busied himself cleaning his Desert Eagle countless times, probably to keep his mind off Justin and Ernie, each of whom had died in front of him. The clock ticked, the clock ticked again, it didn't stop ticking. Nobody looked at each other.  
Thirty, maybe thirty-five minutes passed as the party sat waiting for a miracle. Then all of a sudden, there was a scratching at the door. The doorknob turned and the door opened. Four soldiers bundled in, with the sounds of creatures in the distance. The door was quickly shut. Then, and only then, did any of them notice any of Harry or Ron's group.  
Harry remembered that he had specifically asked the Room of Requirement to be a place where nobody who wanted them dead could find them, so he was quite at ease with the present situation. "Evening." he said mildly.  
"Squad! We've got hostiles!" the one of the greatest rank and shabbiest appearance shouted. He brought up his shotgun, but another of the soldiers stepped in front of it.  
"What is your malfunction, maggot?" the officer screamed. "Aiding the enemy! Get out of my way right now if you don't want a court-martial!"  
"They aren't the enemy." the soldier said evenly. "The enemy is the anti-American asshole who ordered us to wipe out a school. And even if they were the enemy, they're just kids."  
"You think I like killing kids?" the officer screamed. "I hate it! But that doesn't matter! They're called ORDERS for a reason, dirtbag! Only my life debt is stopping me from citing a court-martial on you right now! Excuse me now while I act like a soldier should!"  
The officer stepped around the soldier and took aim with the shotgun. The soldier fired at point-blank range with his assault rifle. The officer's head exploded, and he crumpled to the ground sideways.  
"Is he - dead?" Hermione asked, brown eyes fearful. She stood up, her invisible shaking magnified into visibility at the tips of her bushy hair.  
"No, he's only pretending." another of the soldiers scoffed sarcastically.  
"I'm not bothered that someone trying to kill me is dead, to be honest." Ron said.  
The third soldier took the treachery somewhat harder. "You shot your CO in the head." he stated in awe.  
The first soldier knelt down beside the man whose life he once saved and checked his pulse. There appeared to be no life signs.  
"Fuck, they'll have heard the signature." he realised aloud. "Take up positions for a last stand, men." He overturned a heavy oak table and got behind it. He took all his magazines out of his pockets and put them on the floor next to his knee. He flicked the safety-catch to a different position. The other two soldiers did similar preparation.  
"No, don't worry, nobody's coming!" Harry announced. "The room's soundproof."  
"The room's soundproof?" The first soldier echoed. "How can it be? There's no seal on the door."  
"The room you've accidentally found is the Room of Requirement. It only appears if you walk past it three times wishing for something. When you do, what you wish for appears in the room, which can also change for your tastes. When we got here first, I wished for a comfortable, soundproof room the creatures couldn't find, so it should be soundproof."  
"And I kept wishing for a place to hide while I turned this way and that in the hallway." the soldier remembered. "Well, we've forgotten to introduce ourselves. I'm corporal Shepherd, and these are privates Sean and Brian. We have just become a pro-American splinter group within an anti- American splinter group within the US army."  
"I'm Harry Potter," he stated, "and this is Hermione Granger - "who looked terrified, "- this is Ron Weasley - "who looked interested, "- and this is Dean Thomas." Dean looked nervous and sheepish as he continued cleaning his Desert Eagle. "We're some of the only survivors of this violent massacre perpetrated by Death Eaters."  
"You aren't the first person to call those masked freaks Death Eaters." noted Sean.  
"I think those assholes are responsible too." added Shepherd. "I looked into that massive dining hall and saw piles and piles of corpses, plus some nasty mythical creatures patrolling alongside those wizards."  
"What I saw, about half an hour ago, was swarms of mythical creatures, soldiers, and Death Eaters marching up to the castle." Harry put in. "As we debated before you came in, it has to be Lord Voldemort's work."  
"God damn it, you're on about Lord Voldeperson too!" Brian complained. "Who is he?"  
Harry shuddered. Hermione broke in. "He's the most evil wizard in all of history. Many years ago he started using killing and intimidation to get power in the wizarding world. He succeeded for a long time, too. He killed anyone who stood in his way. He killed Harry's parents, then tried to kill Harry, because a prophecy foretold that Harry would be his greatest foe. But Voldemort's curse rebounded off baby Harry and turned him into a shadow."  
"So you're afraid of a dead wizard?" Sean asked, confused.  
"No. See, in the summer of last year, Voldemort's followers brought him back to life with a ridiculously complicated spell. Clearly Voldemort thought the first order of business would be to get rid of Albus Dumbledore, the only person he was ever afraid of, and Harry Potter at the same time, so it looks as though he somehow gained influence over the creatures who inhabit the Forbidden Forest and used them to attack Hogwarts. I guess his Death Eaters came along for the ride as well. But where do you soldiers fit in?"  
"I'm still trying to figure that out myself." Shepherd told her. "Why would any senior army official want to take out Hogwarts?" He paused. "Unless - "  
"They were being controlled by Voldemort too?" Ron chipped in.  
"Imperius Curse." Hermione said, at last bringing together some of the pieces. "It makes people do exactly what you want them to do. In this case, a witch or wizard loyal to Voldemort probably used the Imperius Curse on one or two generals to bring in all you soldiers with orders to kill us all."  
"It's slight overkill, though, isn't it?" Dean asked. "Send in all the nastiest bastards in the Forbidden Forest, and a few hundred marines, and all his Death Eaters, and maybe even come in himself?"  
"He obviously didn't want to take chances." Hermione said. "Which is ironic, actually, because the soldiers ended up attacking the creatures and Death Eaters more than the students."  
Suddenly Harry felt a jolt of pain in his scar. Crystal-clear he saw through someone's eyes into the Great Hall. Voldemort was ecstatic, Harry could tell because the joy he was feeling was unrelated with how he felt at the moment. In the background were patrolling Death Eaters and creatures, and so many studies cadavers Harry felt sick, even though he couldn't make out any of the details. Dumbledore was hanging upside-down in the air in front of Harry, howling in pain as an arm holding a wand in front of Harry performed the Cruciatus curse on the old man. He put two and two together. "He's here." Harry gasped. "Voldemort's in the Great Hall." 


	8. The Pieces Start Coming Together

"Are - are you sure?" Dean asked, scared.  
Harry shook his head to clear it, then nodded. "I just saw out of his eyes. He's torturing Dumbledore in the Great Hall, and he's laughing, even though he knows I'm not dead yet."  
"We need to help him." Ron said at once.  
Shepherd laughed. Everyone stared at him, some incredulously, some with undisguised dislike. "You couldn't come close to trying to kill Lord Whatsisname. Nothing short of a dozen tanks supported by innumerable heavy machine-guns could get through his defences, and I mean it. He has way too many mythical creatures in that Hall." Shepherd clarified his reasons for laughter.  
"So, the Hall is steeped in mythical creatures, eh?" Hermione said suddenly, a glint in her eye. "That's a flaw in the plan. If we can't fight Voldemort directly, maybe we can do some magic to disrupt his hold on the creatures."  
Harry recalled his recent mental image of the hall. The mythical creatures far outnumbered the wizards in the room. "Good idea." he and Shepherd said at exactly the same time.  
"How are we gonna muck up his magic?" Ron asked.  
"When we formed this room I specifically asked for volumes on magical history." Hermione said seriously. "Let's have a flick through them and see if this kind of thing has been done before, and then see if we can do anything about it."  
So everybody, including the soldiers, walked up to the bookshelves and picked out a promising-looking book. They then began reading through them all. Periodically people would get up and take a different book. The books which had been read through lay discarded on the oak table, which had of course been righted since Shepherd overturned it for cover. Shepherd chain- smoked while they all read, eyes scanning book after book for any mention of wizards taking control of entire battalions of savage creatures.  
When the sea of discarded books on the table was six deep, the room was like a smokehouse from Shepherd's constant puffing and the clock struck four, Brian whooped in victory.  
"I think I got a winner!"  
"What? What is it?" Hermione demanded, tearing the book away from him before speed-reading the two open pages.  
"Sure, girly, keep it." Brian muttered.  
Hermione looked devilishly happy. "Hah, this is it. It describes how in a part of the world which is now part of Germany, in 1436, the sorceress Windegelt the Worrywart invented and cast a hugely complicated spell, involving a day-long purification ritual, to indefinitely bring the creatures of her local forest under her indirect control to act as a search party for her son, who had gotten slightly lost while away on a solo hunting trip."  
"Voldemort simply ripped off Windegelt's idea." observed Dean.  
"Now, all these creatures, while not directly controlled by Windegelt, did exactly what she wanted them to do. They acted as a search party, and when they found her son, they did not attack him, but participated in a cumulative roar to tell Windegelt where he was. But the son got spooked by this collective yell, and he started firing his crossbow at the beasts. He slew ten of them, and still they did not fight back or stop yelling. Windegelt had mounted her broom at the start of the yelling and sped towards it. She caught sight of her son on the top of a hillock and was about to shout for him to not be frightened, when he did something which he could not have known how catastrophic it would be. He fired a crossbow bolt into the leader of the wolf-pack, an infamous wolf known as Blue Fur because of the strange midnight-blue lustre of his fur. This wolf was undoubtedly the most powerful and influential creature in all of that part of the Germanic wilderness, and because the most powerful and influential creature who had been enslaved had been slain, the magic abruptly broke. The creatures looked around at each other, realised they were standing next to their mortal enemies, and instantly attacked in a mad frenzy. Windegelt's son was also slain in this, so Windegelt committed suicide, yada yada yada. Don't you see?" Hermione cried. "All we have to do is identify the most powerful creature in the Forbidden Forest and kill it, then all the creatures in Hogwarts will kill each other and the Death Eaters, and hopefully even Voldemort!"  
"No." Harry said. "Voldemort will survive. It was foretold that either I would kill him or he would kill me. There is no other way. Once all the creatures are gone, it should just be us and him, and because of the Hogwarts enchantments he won't be able to Disapparate if he suddenly starts to lose. This is the best time there will ever be for me to try and take him down. The final showdown will occur today."  
"You'll have to be quite close when the monster is slain, or else Voldemort will run away before you can return to the Great Hall." Shepherd said thoughtfully.  
"How do you know that this monster isn't in the room with Voldemort?" asked Dean.  
"Because there weren't any really huge creatures in there." Shepherd replied. "I'm sure your Forbidden Forest must have some worse things in it than manticores."  
"Do you think maybe Ronan or Bane count as powerful and influential?" Ron asked.  
Hermione shook her head. "Influential, maybe, but certainly not powerful. Grawp, maybe?"  
"Not even slightly influential." Harry rejected. "Oh no. I know who it is."  
Ron snapped his fingers. "So do I."  
"Well, who, then?" Hermione demanded.  
"Aragog." Ron said grimly.  
"Yep." Harry said. "Listen up, corporal. Aragog is this absolutely massive spider, with hundreds of children, that is, the giant spiders we've seen patrolling around the school. It shouldn't be too hard to find him, you just follow the spiders. He's too old to move, but all his children are mindless thugs for him."  
"So to stop this Voldemort person and save England, I'm gonna have to break out of this school, get into the Forbidden Forest, find the biggest spider the world has ever seen, get through his bodyguard of dozens of huge spiders, and kill it. Then you lot are gonna have to wait for the fighting in the Hall to finish, walk in, and mop up?"  
"That sounds about right." Hermione concluded.  
"The main problem with this plan is that my men and I have almost no ammo, and our weapons aren't nearly big enough." Shepherd said. "Wait, what's that?"  
Harry and the others turned to look at the object of Shepherd's gaze. It was a ridiculously large mound of small arms, heavy arms, explosives, and ordinance. Shepherd's jaw hung lower than a playground swing. "Evidently while we were turning around outside the door, somebody was wishing we had more guns."  
"Not me." Sean piped up.  
"Nor me." Brian added.  
"Then it must have been colonel Black." Shepherd said indifferently. "Okay, men, load up with only the heaviest of weapons. We're gonna be killing things as big as small elephants. You, wizard-people, get near enough to the Hall that you can hear it if hundreds of magical creatures start killing each other. Possibly the fate of the world rests on our shoulders, gentlemen. Make your forefathers proud."  
Everybody prepared. All the soldiers took off their bergens, and any other equipment which wasn't absolutely necessary for the impending assault. Then they loaded up with incredible amounts of firepower. Harry had taken out his wand and was doing practice flicks with it, ignoring the others, when suddenly Dean Thomas let off an entire clip of a submachine gun up and down the walls. Then he reloaded efficiently and picked up another clip from the mound. "Childhood spent playing violent computer games, a kid gets to know how to use firearms." he explained to the shocked occupants of the room. Harry carried on revising magic and helping his friends to revise.  
"Just like you did in the first year, Ron; if you want to levitate something, swish and flick, swish and flick." Harry told Ron. "And don't forget Hermione's pompous correction in Charms class the week before."  
"Win-GAR-dium, lev-i-O-saaaa!" Harry and Ron chorused, then laughed. Hermione's expression turned sour and she looked away.  
"Oh, come off it, Hermione, you're not that self-important brat on the train telling me I had dirt on my nose anymore!" Ron soothed unsoothingly. "We like you now!"  
"Hmph." Hermione responded; a thousand words couldn't have said more.  
"Don't you have more important things to worry about, kiddies?" Sean snarled, trying to fit all of his equipment onto his person in a way which wouldn't result in instant medical complications. In a few minutes everyone was ready to go. 


	9. Getting Into Position to Save England

The three soldiers threw themselves out the door in different directions. Right out of the gate Sean and Brian fired their weapons at something or other, then Harry quickly went over and shut the door. He waited five seconds. Then he opened the door a crack and listened. There was gunfire and explosions off to the left, receding fast. With iron will Harry didn't slam the door when a large number of relatively weak magical creatures stormed past. None of them took any notice of Harry, fortunately. Harry listened harder, hearing the gunfire and explosions redouble, and the roaring of another Yeti. Most importantly, all the creatures he could hear were miles off to the left.  
"Let's go." Harry ordered, heart hammering.  
Harry, Ron and Hermione crept out the door, wands raised. Dean followed with his MP5 submachine gun in the aim, shutting the door behind them. Harry thought about the architecture of the school quickly. "This way." he whispered, walking silently in the opposite direction Shepherd and his men had gone. He wanted to stay away from all the creatures who'd be moving towards the soldiers but still get downstairs quickly so they could hide unnoticed in some room or other. He was hoping to go down a small staircase he knew to be hidden behind a tapestry.  
The four of them got to the tapestry without a hitch. Harry drew it back and prepared to step in.  
"Wait!" Dean whispered urgently.  
Harry looked at him quizzically, but drew back nonetheless. Dean came over and looked closely. "It's trapped." Dean announced. "Tripbeams. I didn't know these were available to the military yet. See those two things on the wall, there and there?" He pointed at a couple of squat, ugly electronic devices stuck to the wall which definitely didn't belong there. "They project a laser beam, which is basically a kind of invisible light, Ron. If you interrupt the beam, it explodes, and because of the ball- bearings on the outside of the thing it's guaranteed to kill whatever trips it. Try and step between them, and lift up your robes so they don't trip it either." The party carefully stepped between the tripbeams, making sure nothing blocked the laser. They successfully circumnavigated the explosives and carried on down the stairs, careful to look for any more explosives and still be totally silent.  
They got to the bottom of the spiral staircase and Harry moved the tapestry back a smidgen to look past. The hallway appeared to be deserted. Harry brashly lifted it all the way back and clambered over, wand covering all angles of attack. The hallway this tapestry was on was completely deserted. The main doors to the Great Hall were only fifty metres away and there were several classrooms to choose from to hide in. Harry recognised one and instantly decided it would be the best one to hide in by far.  
Harry quickly opened the door to Firenze's classroom and strolled in, wand raised. It appeared to be devoid of animal life. The trees, including the ones which were really just illusions of trees on the wall of the room, all swayed in a magical breeze, ruffling Harry's already unkempt hair. Dean was again the person furthest behind and shut the door, which camouflaged itself once shut so that unless one was looking for the door it didn't throw off the natural appearance of the room. Harry looked down sadly at the arrow-studded body of beautiful Firenze.  
"He wasn't in the Forest, so he wasn't put under Voldemort's control with Windegelt's spell, so they killed him." Hermione stated sorrowfully. "Even if they were his brethren."  
"You know, the centaurs did attack him before he came to teach." Dean stated. "Even if they had come up to the castle outside of Voldemort's control they probably would have shot him full of arrows." He realised Harry and Hermione were glaring at him. "It's true." he defended. "I'm not saying his death isn't a bad thing."  
"We might as well hide properly, behind bushes and trees, so if any Death Eaters decide to have a look-see we'll stay hidden." Ron advised. Everyone did as Ron suggested without affirmation or argument.  
Minutes passed while everybody lay in wait. Once they heard people marching past, closely followed by some large grunting creatures, but nobody opened the door.  
"Tanks." Dean said suddenly. From a lying down position, hidden from view by bushes, he sat up. "Muggle tanks are coming."  
"What are tanks?" Ron asked apprehensively.  
"Vehicles made of really thick steel armed with the biggest guns you've ever seen." Dean replied. Outside came a volley of explosions from some way away, then greater explosions on the castle walls. The ground didn't just shake, it wavered. "That's those guns firing." Dean explained calmly to a whimpering Ron.  
"There must be a dozen or more of them!" Hermione exclaimed. "You know, with that much Muggle firepower, they have a chance of killing all the creatures themselves! Should we go out and help?"  
Harry shook his head. "Hermione, you didn't see how many creatures are in the Hall. No amount of Muggle firepower could kill them all. The assault force will get slaughtered. And plus, the people driving the tanks would probably shoot us as soon as look at us, whoever they are. This is just a slight hiccup in our plan. We wait."  
The gunfire and roars of creatures carried on for a short while, but the tanks stopped shooting when large enemies smashed them to pieces. Then silence reigned once more, so the group sank back into a worried stupor.  
They wondered what they would do if the three soldiers died trying to kill Aragog. Even if they went after Aragog themselves and managed to kill him somehow, they knew they'd never run back to the castle in time to finish off Voldemort. And there wasn't even a guarantee that Voldemort couldn't Apparate from Hogwarts, as far as anyone knew Voldemort could get around the ancient enchantments, so Shepherd's victory might turn out to be pedestrian, or even moot. Many more minutes passed as Harry's pulse stayed over a hundred b.p.m. Then suddenly something in the air (the magic binding the creatures, no doubt) splintered, cracked and shattered. Then they heard the very obvious cacophony of a Great Hall full of creatures and Death Eaters killing each other.  
"Showtime." Dean said, grinning.  
"How can you grin?" Ron snapped, looking pale.  
"Because it's an ultimatum delivered by fate." Dean said with satisfaction. "There are no more complications. Either after all the creatures are dead we kill Voldemort and become famous the world over or we die trying. There's a good chance I'll die. If I do, I intend to be grinning even while it happens."  
"You're mental." Ron summarised as he got up off the floor and started stretching and jogging on the spot.  
Harry stood up unsteadily, mentally toughening himself, reminding himself that the reason he had to grow up with the veneficiophobic Dursleys was because of that ugly snake-headed screwup in the Great Hall formerly known as Tom Riddle - who had likely recently killed Albus Dumbledore, Harry's favourite wizard, after also killing all of Harry's schoolfriends, not to mention that many years ago he started an incredibly destructive guerrilla war just for his personal power advancement. No matter what circumstances I find myself in, Harry told himself, that bastard deserves absolutely no mercy. Harry's rage boiled, and he felt like knocking down trees solely from the ferocity of his glare. He was ready to kill and/or die. 


	10. You can't gang up on him! That's cheatin...

He wrenched open the door and walked towards the Great Hall double doors calmly, listening to the great sounds of the incredible conflict still raging in the Hall. The other three hurried to catch up, Ron and Hermione looking scared but determined, and Dean still with an ear-to-ear devil-may-care grin on his face.  
They were twenty metres from the broken double doors when they were knocked open roughly by a behemoth. Harry watched it lope out of the Hogwarts main doors pitilessly as he stood still, waiting for others to run away. Sure enough, a procession of troglodytes, several harpies, two centaurs, a few Blood-Sucking Bugbears and many other creatures they could not name exploded out the door in a panic, still running away from curses being let off in the Hall. Harry began walking again. He got to the door of the Great Hall with the others and walked in.  
The positions of the corpses of the Hogwarts student body was the same as Harry remembered from the vision, but now there were hundreds of creature corpses and a dozen Death Eater corpses thrown on top of them and all around the floor. Harry could also see Albus Dumbledore's unmoving form hanging upside down over the staff table, and Voldemort standing in front of it with his back to Harry. One Death Eater stirred near them, holding his stump of an arm and groaning quietly. Dean shot him in the face. This attracted the attention of the one other person left alive in the room, the Dark Lord.  
"So, Harry." Voldemort called in a malicious hiss. Harry expected him to say something else but he seemed to be lost for words, for the first time Harry had ever seen.  
"I read up on history and found out how you did exactly what Windegelt the Worrywart did." Harry supplied. "So I sent some people to kill the most powerful magical creature in the Forbidden Forest to break your spell. As I thought, the creatures instantly killed everyone in the room but you. And now I'm here to fulfil the prophecy; to kill you."  
"You lie." Voldemort sensed correctly. "You tell the truth about everything except the prophecy. Your thoughts betray you; I know you know that isn't the real wording."  
"Not exactly, no." Harry admitted. "The prophecy basically says that the one with the power to kill you - that is, me - would be born at the end of July, and that one of us would kill each other. And the way I see it, if you do kill me, it makes the whole prophecy a load of pretentious bollocks, so I think I'm destined to kill you, and Trelawney only left some doubt to make it more interesting."  
"I disagree. AVADA KEDAVRA!" Voldemort screamed, and some blinding green light bore down on Harry and his friends rapidly. Everyone hurled themselves to the side and the curse missed. Harry cast a Stunner at Voldemort (because it's a quicker spell to articulate than Avada Kedavra) and Dean put a long burst of gunfire at Voldemort, who threw himself off the staff table to the left and ran towards them, ducking down low so he couldn't be hit.  
"Split up!" Harry ordered, and everyone scattered in different directions: Hermione went right, Dean went left, Ron went forwards and Harry jumped on top of the left table, standing on a couple of dead Ravenclaws. While getting onto the table Harry yelled, "Avada Kedavra!" with gusto, pointing his wand towards Voldemort with the last syllable. Voldemort rolled underneath the Slytherin house table to avoid the curse and Dean's next volley of bullets. Ron, who was quite close to Voldemort, jumped high in the air when he heard Voldemort saying an incantation, leaping over the curse aimed at his legs, and performed the Reductor curse in midair, smashing the table and bringing down a pile of corpses on top of Voldemort. Voldemort swore loudly and levitated the pile to crawl out of it. Hermione cast the Cruciatus curse from across the room, but Voldemort did some kind of counter-curse which rebounded it entirely onto Hermione, who therefore suffered a full second of it, falling to the ground. At least on the ground Voldemort couldn't see her to curse her, so instead Voldemort rolled out from under the table. Ron shouted, "Petrificus totalus!" but missed him out of haste, and anyway Voldemort managed to perform the counter-curse while still rolling. Harry cast three more 'Avada Kedavras' as Voldemort leapt to his feet but Voldemort was too fast, dodging backwards and to the side and shooting purple flames at Ron at the same time, who dodged them with inhuman speed. Voldemort ran towards Hermione, who was still lying dazed on the floor, to finish her off while she was weakened. Dean leapt onto Harry's table and fired at Voldemort on full- auto, expiring the clip. He still didn't hit Voldemort, because he was ducking and weaving, but both Harry and Dean saw that he managed to rip several holes in Voldemort's robes. Dean swore and reloaded. He didn't even have to dodge a badly-aimed curse by Voldemort, which didn't even interrupt his efficient reloading.  
Ron got onto the table, hiding behind a mound of bodies, wand sticking around the corner. Voldemort came into view and pointed his wand at Hermione, but noticed Ron and performed a powerful defensive spell just as Ron shouted, "Stupefy!" The curse rebounded and hit Ron in the face, who toppled backwards off the table, knocked out. Voldemort looked down at Hermione again, but was distracted when Dean squeezed off a few more rounds. Dean jumped off the table and cut a wide berth around Voldemort so he could see Voldemort without getting too close.  
Harry leapt onto the table and ducked back just as quickly, avoiding Voldemort's killing curse, and sprung back, shouting, "Avada Kedavra!!" The curse smashed into the floor where Voldemort had been one second before. Harry saw the swish of his cloak as he rolled beneath Harry's table. Right underneath Harry. Dean spied an opening and fired off a load more rounds. Harry heard Voldemort mutter something, and a magical shield appeared between Dean and Voldemort. Harry bellowed, "Avada - "as he jumped off the table towards Hermione, and in midair finished with, "- KEDAVRA!" But again he was cheated, as Voldemort and emerged from the corpse-strewn table on the other side.  
Harry hit the floor painfully, glancing at Hermione, who seemed to have retrieved her bearings. He heard Voldemort say with authority, "Accio MP5!" and Dean's cry of annoyance as his weapon was ripped from his grasp. But Voldemort couldn't kill Dean instantly because both hands would be required to catch the weapon, so he couldn't hold his wand out to perform a curse. Harry stood up, livid, just in time to see Dean heroically draw his Desert Eagle even before Voldemort caught the gun and emptied it in Voldemort's direction. Harry heard Voldemort's serpentine snarls as several of the bullets hit him. Harry raised his wand and roared a final, "AVADA KEDAVRA!!!!"  
The green light bashed straight into Voldemort, who was distracted by the gunshot wounds sufficiently that he did not dodge the killing curse. He hit the ground like a sack of rotten meat. And then the enchantments which had temporarily given him life, performed almost exactly one year ago, faded away, and so did Voldemort. The cruelty etched on his slack facial features ebbed away, then his skin shrunk and mouldered into dust, leaving nothing but a skeleton inside some dusty robes. 


	11. Epilogue

Harry shakily stepped over the table and knelt beside the skeleton. He stared at it in wonder, and stood up. He brought his foot down on the skull, smashing it into several pieces. "We need to make sure he doesn't get a decent burial." Harry said angrily, then his anger left him. He had done it, he had saved England from another magical civil war, he had fulfilled his life's purpose. He stumbled backwards into a Gryffindor table chair. He had done it. He had done it. The enormity of it hit him. He had avenged everyone. Everyone who died as a result of Voldemort's vile, treacherous work. All the conflict was finished. Harry's life had climaxed, a culmination of his resentment of the Dursleys and hatred of Death Eaters had all been sucked out of him when he killed Voldemort. He felt... hollow. His raison d'etre had been completed.

What more was there to do in his life? Go back to school? A different school, because Hogwarts was no more? And then follow some career, working hours to make a living?

No, he realised. The rest of his life didn't have to be as pointless as that. He could become an Auror, fighting people who had the same malice as Voldemort for the good of everyone. It was not a happy thought, continuing to fight evil until the day he died. But he felt that if he could kill the most terrible wizard of all time he would be essential in the fight against evil. This cheered him up very slightly.

He was barely aware of the conversation held by the others, outlining their plan of what to tell the Ministry wizards, who probably still didn't know about the whole fiasco because they hadn't shown up at all. Then Hermione mentioned that they should find Shepherd and thank him. So everyone performed Summoning charms on their brooms, Harry joining in without paying attention. They all mounted up and Harry followed, grateful that someone else was doing the thinking for a change. They flew out the mangled front doors and gained altitude, hoping Shepherd had found his way out of the Forest and was waiting for them.

Harry came back to reality somewhat when he saw that Shepherd was encircled by attack helicopters. He noticed a couple of Hippogriffs flying past.

"Hey!" Ron shouted at them conversationally. "The man down there is the one who lifted the curse on you! Let's go help him!"

Incredibly the Hippogriffs understood. Powerfully they flapped towards the helicopters, and not even Harry's Firebolt could keep up because they were moving so purposefully. He stopped trying to catch up and dropped back to join the others on their Cleansweep Sevens. The Hippogriffs came up to helicopters by flying in their blind spots (the two attack helicopters were side by side, and the bubble helicopter had landed near Shepherd and disgorged three people, two of whom were definitely soldiers and one of whom definitely wasn't). Then the Hippogriffs suddenly swung round in front of the helicopters and smashed through the windscreens with their talons, killing the pilots, causing the helicopters to spin out and crash. One of the Hippogriffs managed to dodge away from its helicopter, the other one was chopped into fish food by the unforgiving helicopter rotors.

Harry heard faint gunfire and looked down; either Sean or Shepherd had just shot both of the soldiers and was pointing his large machine-gun into the helicopter. Harry couldn't see Brian and calmly assumed the soldier was dead. Harry and friends flew down to meet to meet the two remaining soldiers.

"Hey, Harry!" Shepherd greeted. "From what this asshole says - " here he gestured at the politician, "- I'm guessing you succeeded in killing Lord Voldemort!"

"Damn right." Harry said without much enthusiasm. "I got him. The wizarding world is at peace once more."

"This prick wanted to deport me to somewhere 'where I could do no possible harm', probably some top-secret prison." Shepherd called, changing the subject upon seeing the sorrowful look on Harry's face. "What should we do with him? This helicopter here is his only way out of here."

"Kill him." Ron said indifferently. "Ungrateful bastard."

"Ron!" Hermione cried, shocked. "Corporal, just leave him here. The wizarding authorities will pick him up, if the creatures don't get him first. You force the pilot to take you to some obscure country where you can disappear. I'm really sorry you can't go back to society now that you're a hero."

"What are you sorry for?" Shepherd laughed. "It's not your fault. Hey, Harry, are you sure you're OK?"

"What?" Harry asked. He hadn't paid attention to any of the conversation. "Oh, yeah, great."

"Well, I hope we see you again, but I doubt it." Shepherd called to the wizards and witches hovering in midair, as their griffin rejoined them. He gave the politico a good hard kick before getting on the helicopter, with the muzzle of the Desert Eagle pressed into the pilot's neck, and the rotors started turning.

"They're going to have to lie low in some third-world country if their own government wants them dead." Hermione said morosely. "And after going above and beyond the call of duty, too. Poor Sean and Shepherd."

"Do we wait for the Ministry now?" Dean asked, still clutching his retrieved MP5.

The surviving Hippogriff flew up alongside Harry. The two stared at each other. The Hippogriff seemed to sense his mental anguish. Unblinking, Harry bowed as best as he could while sitting on a broom. The Hippogriff nodded gracefully. Harry reached out and stroked it.

"Yes." Hermione replied to Dean simply.

"We won't have to wait long." Harry assured everyone. "Look, here they come now."

A knot of Aurors and other wizards Apparated onto the Hogwarts train platform near the lake, expecting to be attacked straightaway, judging by their circular formation and offensive stances. They fanned out, then started running up to the castle. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dean swooped away to greet them, explain how the situation had been resolved, and sort out the rest of their lives.

The end.


End file.
